The recent gift of this beautiful canvas is a key addition to our collection(opens in new tab). Now hanging in our permanent galleries, it offers visitors a major milestone in the development of French landscape painting.
Eugène Boudin is best known for his depictions of harbors, sailors, fishermen and fashionable vacationers at beach resorts. He grew up in the port city of Honfleur, in Normandy, working on his father’s ship and, later, in a stationery and framing store. This job allowed Boudin to meet painters working in the area who encouraged him to pursue an artistic career. He followed their advice and went to Paris in his 20s to study painting. Establishing a steady routine, he spent his summer in the coastal towns of Normandy and Brittany, sketching outdoors. He then used those studies to produce highly marketable paintings like this one in his Paris studio during the winter. His keen observation of the varying atmospheric conditions foreshadowed impressionism and influenced the young Claude Monet, who painted alongside Boudin in the Havre.
The Havre, one of Frances’s most important ports, became a main feature in Boudin’s numerous seascapes early on in his career. Its dramatic and infinite views enabled Boudin to focus on the ever-changing sea and sky. In fact, his reputation for his sensitive and lifelike representation of the elements led artist Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796 – 1875) to refer to Boudin as “le roi des cieux” (“the king of the skies”). This was no small compliment as Corot was a pivotal figure of 19th-century landscape painting. Boudin exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon (the official art exhibition sponsored by the French government) and participated in the first impressionist exhibition in 1874. Today, examples of his work are held in museum collections around the world.
Authored by:
Nelda Damiano
